
s 



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SPEECH 



HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, OF ILLINOIS, 



THE STATE OF THE UNION 



(DKLrVSRED IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 3, liffiJ- 



WASHIISGTON: 



"WftBfci lii^' ■^■**'^' ^*'- 



SPEECH. 



The Senate having under consideration the following resolution reported by the select 
committee of thirteen, appointed to consider the agitated and distracted condition of the 
country — 

Resolved, That the committee have not been able to agree upon any general plan of adjust- 
ment, and report that fact to the Senate, together with the journal of the committee. 

Mr. DOUGLAS said: 

Mr. Pkesident: No act of my public life has ever caused me so 
much regret as the necessity of voting in the special committee of 
thirteen for the resolution reporting to the Senate our inability to 
agree upon any general plan of adjustment, which would restore peace 
to the country and insure the integrity of the Union. If we wish to 
understand the reqil causes which have produced such wide-spread and 
deep-seated discontent in the slaveholding States, we must go back 
beyond the recent presidential election, and trace the origin and his- 
tory of the slavery agitation from the period when it first became an 
active element in Federal politics. Without fatiguing the Senate with 
tedious details, I may be permitted to assume, without the fear of suc- 
cessful contradiction, that whenever the Federal Grovernment has at- 
tempted to decide and control the slavery question in the newly 
acquired Territories, regardless of the wishes of the inhabitant, 
alienation of feeling, sectional strife, and discord have ensued; and 
whenever Congress has refrained from such interference, harmony and 
fraternal feeling have been restored. The whole volume of our 
nation's history may be confidently appealed to in support of this pro- 
position. The most memorable instances are the fearful sectional 
controversies which brought thd Union to the verge of disruption in 
1820, and again in 1850. It was the territorial question in each case 
which presented the chief points of difficulty, because it involved the 
irritating question of 'the relative political power of the two sections. 
All the other questions, which entered into and served to increase the 
slavery agitation, were deemed of secondary importance, and dwindled 
into insignificance so soon as the territorial question was definitely 
settled. 

From the period of the organization of the Federal Government, 
under the Constitution, in 1789, down to 1820, all the territorial gov- 
ernments had been organized upon the basis of non-interference by 
Congress with the domestic institutions of the people. During that 
period several new Territories were organized, including Tennessee, 
Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, and Alabama. In no one of these 
Territories did Congress attempt to interfere with the question of 
slavery, either to introduce or exclude, protect or prohibit it. During 
the whole of this period there was peace and good-will between the 
people of all parte of the Union so far as the questioii of slavery was 
concerned. 



SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



But the first time Congress ever attempted to interfere with and 
control that question, regardless of the wishes of the people interested 
in it, the Union was put in jeopardy, and was only saved from disso- 
lution by the adoption of the compromise of 1820. In the famous 
Missouri controversy, the majority of the North demanded that Con- 
gress should prohibit slavery forever in all the territory acquired from 
France, extending from the State of Lousiana to the British possess- 
ions on the north, and from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. 
The South and the conservative minority of the North, on the con- 
trary, stood firmly upon the ground of non-intervention, denying the 
right of Congress to touch the subject. They did not ask Congress 
to interfere for protection nor for any purpose, while they opposed the 
right and justice of exclusion. Thus, each party^ with their respect- 
ive positions distinctly defined — the one for and the other against 
congressional intervention — maintained its position with desperate 
persistency until disunion seemed inevitable, when a compromise was 
effected by an equitable partition of the territory between the two 
sections on the line of 36° 30', prohibiting slavery on the one side and 
permitting it on the other. 

In the adoption of this compromise, each party yielded one-half of 
its claim for the sake of the Union. It was designed to form the 
basis of perpetual peace on the slavery question by establishing a rule 
in accordance with which all future controversy would be avoided. 
The line of partition was distinctly marked so far as our territory 
might extend; and, by irresistible inference, the spirit of the com- 
promise required the extension of the line on the same parallel when- 
ever we should extend our territorial limits. The North and the 
South — although each was dissatisfied with the terms of the settle- 
ment, each having surrendered one-half of its claim — by common con- 
sent agreed to acquiesce in it, and abide by it as a permanent basis of 
peace upon the slavery question. It is true, that there were a few 
discontented spirits in both secti )n8 who attempted to renew the con- 
troversy irom time to time ; but the deep Union feeling prevailed, 
and the masses of the people were disposed to stand by the settlement 
as the surest means of averting future difficulties. 

Peace was restored, fraternal feeling returned, and we were a happy 
and united people so long as we adhered to and carried out, in good 
faith, the Missouri com])romise according to its spirit, as well as its 
letter. In 1845, when Texas was annexed to the Union, the policy 
of an equitable partition on the line of 36° 30' was adhered to and 
carried into effect by the extension of the line as far westward as the 
new acquisition might reach. It is true, there was much diversity of 
opinion as to the propriety and wisdom of annexing Texas. In the 
North the measure was opposed by large numbers upon the distinct 
ground that it was enlarging the area of slave territory within the 
Union ; and in the South it probably received much additional sup- 
port for the same reason ; but, while it may have been opposed and 
supported, in some degree. North and South, from these considera- 
tions, no considerable number in either section objected to it upon the 
ground that it extended and carried out the policy of the Missouri 



ox THE STATE OF THE UNION. 



compromise. The objection was solely to the acquisition of thecountry, 
and not to the application of the Missouri compromise to it, if acquired. 
No fair-minded man could deny that every reason which induced the 
adoption of the line in 1820 demanded its extension through Texas, 
and every new acquisition, whenever we enlarged our territorial pos- 
sessions in that direction. No man would have been deemed faithful 
to the obligations of the Missouri compromise at that day, who was 
opposed to its application to future acquisitions. 

The record shows that Texas was annexed to the Union upon the 
express condition that the Missouri compromise should be extended 
and made applicable to the country, so far as our new boundaries 
might reach. The history of that acquisition will show that I not 
only supported the annexation of Texas, but that I urged the neces- 
sity of applying the Missouri compromise to it, for the purpose of ex- 
tending it through New Mexico and California to the Pacific ocean, 
whenever we should acquire those Territories, as a means of putting 
an end to the slavery agitation forever. 

The annexation of Texas drew after it the war with Mexico, and 
the treaty of peace left us in possession of California and New Mexico. 
This large acquisition of new territory was made the occasion for re- 
newing the Missouri controversy. The agitation of 1849-'50 was 
a second edition of that of 1819-'20, It was stimulated by the same 
motives, aiming at the same ends, and enforced by the same argu- 
ments. The northern majority invoked the intervention of Congress 
to prohibit slavery everywhere in the Territories of the United 
States — both sides of the Missouri line — south as well as north of 
06° 30'. The South, together with a conservative minority in the 
North, stood firmly upon the ground of non-intervention, denying 
the right of Congress to interfere with the subject, but avowing a 
willingness, in the spirit of concession for the sake of peace and the 
Union, to adhere to and carry out the policy of an equitable parti- 
tion on the line of 86° 30' to the Pacific ocean, in the same sense in 
which it was adopted in 1820, and according to the understanding 
when Texas was annexed in 1845. Every argument and reason, 
every consideration of patriotism and duty, which induced the adop- 
tion of the policy in 1820, and its application to Texas in 1845, de- 
manded its application to California and New Mexico in 1848. The 
peace of the country, the fraternal feeling of all its parts, the safety 
of the Union, all were involved. 

Under these circumstances, as chairman of the Committee on Terri- 
tories, I introduced into the Senate the following proposition, which 
was adopted by a vote of 33 to 21 in the Senate, but rejected in the 
House of Representatives. I read from the Journal, August 10, 1848, 
page 563 : 

"On motion by Mr. Douulas to amend tlie bill, section fourteen, line one, by inserting 
after the word ' enacted ': 

" That t!ie liiie of 3G° 30' of north latitude, known as the Missouri compromise line, as 
defined by the eighth section of an act entitled ' An act to authorize the people of the 
Missouri Territory to form a constitution and State frovernment, and for the admission of 
8uch State into the Union on an equal fooling with the original States, and to prohibit slavery 
in ^certain Territories, api)roved March G, 1620,' be, and the same is hereby, declared to 
extend to the Pacific ocean; and the eaid eighth section, together with the compromise therein 



SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



effected, is'hereby revived, and declared to be in full force and bindings, for the future organi- 
zation of the Territories of tiie United States, in tlie same sense, and with the same under- 
standing, with which it was originally adopted; 

♦' it was determined in the afhrniative — yeas 33, nays 21. 

" On motion by Mr. Baldwin, tlie yeas and nays being desired by one-fifth of the senators 
present, those who voted in the affirmative are: 

" Messrs. Atcliison, Badger, Bell, Benton, Berrien, Borland, Bright, Butler, Calhoun, 
Cameron, Davis, of Mississii)pi, Dickinson, Douglas, Downs, Fitzgerald, Foote, Hannegan, 
Houston, Hunter, Johnson, of Maryland, Johnson, of Louisiana, Johnson, of Georgia, 
King, Lewis, Mangum, Mason, xMetcalf, Pearce, Sebastian, Spruance, Sturgeon, Turney, 
Underwood. 

" Those who voted in the negative are: 

" Messrs. Allen, Atherton, Baldwin, Bradbury, Breese, Clark, Corwin, Davis, of Massa- 
chusetts, Dayton, Dix, Dodge, Felch, Green, Hale, Hamlin, Miller, Niles, Phelps, Upham, 
Walker, Webster. 

"So the proposed amendment was agreed to." 

The bill, as amended, was then ordered to be engrossed for a third 
reading, by a vote of 38 to 22, and was read the third time, and passed 
on the same day. By the classification of the votes for my proposition 
to carry out the Missouri compromise, it will be seen that all the 
southern Senators, twenty-six in number, including Mr. Galhoun, vo- 
ted in the affirmative ; and of the northern Senators, seven voted in 
the affirmative and twenty-one in the negative. The proposition was 
rejected in the House of Representatives by almost a sectional, vote, 
the whole South voting for it, and a large majority !of the -North 
againsb it. ' 

It was the rejection of that proposition — the repudiation of the pol- 
icy of an equitable partition of the territory between the two sections, 
on the line of 36° 30' — which reopened the floodgates of slavery agi- 
tation and deluged the v^hole country with sectional strife and bitter- 
ness, until the Union was again brought to the verge of disruption, 
before the swelling tide of bitter waters could be turned back, and 
passion and prejudice could be made to give place to reason and pa- 
triotism. . 

Had the Senate's proposition been concurred in by the House of Rep- 
resentatives ; had the policy of an equitable partition been adhered to ; 
had the Missouri compromise been carrie'd but in good faith, through 
our newly acquired territory, to the Pacific ocean, there would have 
been an end to the slavery agitation forever. For, the line of parti- 
tion between free and slave territory being once firmly established 
and distinctly defined from the Atlantic to the Pacific, all new ac- 
quisitions, whether on the North or the South, would have con- 
formed to that adjustment, without exciting the passions, or wound- 
ing the sensibilities, or disturbing the harmony of our people. I do 
not think it would have made any material difFeren(3e in respect to 
the condition of the new States to be formed out of such territory, 
for I have always believed, and often said, that the existence or non- 
existence of African slavery depends more upon the necessities of 
climate, health, and productions, than upon congressional and ter- 
ritorial enactments. It was in reference to this great truth that Mr. 
Webster said that the condition of all the territory acquired from 
Mexico, 80 far as the question of slavery was concerned, was irrevo- 
cably fixed and settled by an irrypealable law — the law of climate, 
and of physical geography, and of the formation of the earth. You 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 



might as well attempt by act of Congress to compel cotton to grow 
upon the tops of the Rocky Mountains and rice upon the summits of 
the Sierra Nevada, as to compel shivery to exist, by congressional 
enactment, where neither climate, nor health, nor productions, will 
render it necessary and self-sustaining. Yet the desire, on the one 
hand, for the extension of slavery into regions where it is physically 
impossible to sustain it, and, on the other hand, to abolish and exclude 
it from those countries where the white man cannot endure the climate 
and cultivate the soil, threatens to keep the agitation of this question 
perpetually in Congress, until the passions of the people shall become 
so inflamed that civil war and disunion shall become inevitable. It 
is the territorial question — whether slavery shall exist in those vast 
regions, in utter disregard of the wishes and necessities of the people 
inhabiting them — that is convulsing and dissolving the Republic; a 
question in which we have no direct interest, about which we have 
very little knowledge, and which the people of those territories must 
and will eventually decide for themselves and to suit themselves, no 
matter what Congress may do. But for this territorial question there 
would be very little difficulty in settling the other matters in contro- 
versy. The abolitionists could never endanger the peace of the 
country or the existence of the Union by the agitation of the 'slavery 
question in the District of Columbia by itself, or in the dock-yards, 
forts, and arsenals in the slaveholdiug States, or upon the fugitive 
slave law, or upon any minor issue, or upon them all together, if the 
territorial question could be finally and irrevocably settled. 

I repeat, it was the repudiation of the policy of the Missouri com- 
promise, the refusal to apply it to the territory acquired from Mexffco, 
when offered by me, and supported by the whole ^outh, in August, 
1848, which reopened the agitation and revived the Missouri contro- 
versy. The compromise of 1820 once repudiated, the policy of an 
equitable parti-tion of the territory abandoned, the proposition to 
extend it to the Pacific being rejected, and the original controversy 
reopened with increased bitterness, each party threw itself back on 
its original extreme position — the one demanding its exclusion every- 
where, and the other insisting upon its right to go everywhere in the 
territories, regardless of the wishes of the people inhabiting them. 
All the arguments, pro and con., used in 1819-20 were repeated in 
1849-50. The question was the same, and the relative position of 
the two sections the same. 

Such was the condition of things at the opening of the session of 
1849-'50, when Mr. Clay resumed his seat in this body. 

The purest patriots in the land had become alarmed for the fate of 
the Republic. The immortal Clay,-v/hose life had been devoted to the 
rights, interests, and glory of his country, had retired to the shades 
of Ashland to prepare for another and a better world. When, in his 
retirement, hearing the harsh and discordant notes of sectional strife 
and disunion, he consented, at the earnest solicitation of his country- 
men, to resume his seat in the Senate, the theatre of his great deeds, 
to see if, by his experience, his wisdom, the renown of his great name, 
and his strong hold upon the confidence and affections of the American 



SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



people, he could not do somethinjij to restore peace to a distracted 
country. From the moment of his arrival among us he became, by 
common consent, and as a matter of course, the leader of the Union 
men. His first idea was to revive and extend to the Pacific ocean the 
Missouri compromise line, with the same understanding and legal 
effect in which it had been adopted in 1820, and continued througii 
Texas in 1845. I was one of his humble followers and trusted friends 
in endeavoring to carry out that policy, and in connexion with others, 
at his special request, carefully canvassed both liouses of Congress to 
ascertain whether it was possible to obtain a majority vote in each 
House for the measure. We found no difficulty with the southern 
Senators and Representatives, and could secure the co-operation of a 
minority from the North; but not enough to give us a majority iu 
both Houses. Hence the Missouri compromise was abandoned by its 
friends, ngt from choice, but from inability to carry it irdo effect in 
good faith. It was with extreme reluctance that Mr. Clay, and those 
of us who acted with him and shared his confidence, were brought to 
the conclusion that we must abandon, from inability to carry out, the 
line of policy which had saved the Union in 18 iO, and given peace to 
the country for many happy years. 

Finding ourselves unable to maintain that policy, we yield to a 
stern necessity, and turned our attention to ttie discoveiy of some 
other plan by which the existing difficulties could be settled, and fu- 
ture troubles avoided. I need not detail the circumstances under 
which Mr. Clay brought forward his plan of adjustment, which re- 
ceived the sanction of the tv/o Houses of Congress and the approbation 
of f he American people, and is familiarly known as the compromise 
measures of 1850. These measures were designed to accomplish the 
same results as the act of 1820, but in a different mode. The leading 
feature and chief merit of each was to \)anish the slavery agitation 
from the Halls of Congress and the arena of Federal politics. The 
act of 1820 was intended to attain this end by an equitable partition 
of the Territories between the contending sections. The acts of 1850 
were designed to attain the same end by remitting the whole question 
of slavery to the decision of the people of the Territories, subj«ct to 
the limitations of the Constitution, and let the Federal ci-urts deter- 
mine the validity and cr nstitutionality of the territorial enactments 
from time to time, as cases should arise and appeals be taken to the 
Supreme Court of the United States. The one, proposed to settle the 
question by a geographical line and an equitable partition ; and the 
other by the principles of po])ular sovereignty in accordance with the 
Constitution. The object of both being the same, I supported each in 
turn as a means of attaining a desirable end. 

After the compromise measures of 1850 had become the law of the 
land, those who had opposed their enactment appealed to their con- 
stituents to sustain them in their opposition, and implored them not 
to acquiesce in the ])rinciple8 upon which they were founded, and 
never to cease to war upon them until they should be annulled and 
effaced from the statute book. The contest before the people was 
fierce and bitter, accompanied sometimes with acts of violence and in- 



ON THE STATE OP THE UNION. 



timidatiou ; but fortunately, Mr. Clay lived long enough to feel and 
know that his last great efforts for the peace of the country and the 
perpetuity of the Union — the crowning acts of a brilliant and glorious 
career in the public service — had met the approval and received the 
almost unanimous indorsement of his grateful countrymen. The re- 
pose which the country was permitted to enjoy for a brief period 
proved to be a temporary truce in the sectional conflict, and not a 
permanent peace upon the slavery question. The purpose of reopen- 
ing the agitation for a congressional prohibition of slavery in all the 
Territories whenever an opportunity or excuse could be had, seems 
never to have been abandoned by those who originated the scheme for 
partisan purposes in 1819, and were baffled in their designs by the 
adoption of the Missouri compromise in 1820 ; and who renewed the 
attempt in 1848, but were again doomed to suffer a mortifying defeat 
iu the adoption of the compromise measures of 1850. The opportunity 
and pretext for renewing the agitation v/as discovered by those who 
had never abandoned the design, when it became necessary, in 1854, 
to pass the necessary laws for the organization of the Territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska. The necessity for the organization of these 
Territories, in order to open and protect the routes of emigration and 
travel to California and Oiegon could not be denied. The measure 
could not be postponed longer without endangering the peace of the 
frontier settlements, and incurring the hazards of an Indian war, grow- 
ing out of the constant collisions between the emigrants and the In- 
dian tribes through whose country they were compelled to pass. 

_ Early in December, 1853, Senator Dodge, of Iowa, introduced a 
bill for the organization of the Territory of Nebraska, which was 
referred to the Committee on Territories, of which I was chairman. 
The committee did not volunteer their services on the occasion. The 
bill vvas referred to us by the vote of the Senate, and our action v/,j*8. 
in discharge of a plain duty imposed upon us by an express command, 
of the body. 

The first question which addressed itself to the calm and deliberate 
consideration of the committee was : upon what basis shall the organi- 
zation of the Territory be formed? Whether upon the theory of a 
geographical line and an equitable partition of the territory in accor- 
dance with the compromise of 1820, which had been abandoned by its 
supporters, not from choice, but from our inability to carry it out; or 
upon the principle of non-intervention and popular sovereignty, ac- 
cording to the compromise measures of 1850, which had taken the 
place of the Missouri compromise? 

The committee, upon mature deliberation, and with great unanimity, 
decided that all future territorial organizations should be formed upon 
the principles and model of the compromise measures of 1850, inas- 
much as in the recent presidential election (1852) both of the great 
I)olitical parties of the country, (Whig and Democratic,) of which 
the Senate was composed, stood pledged to those measures as a sub- 
stitute for the act of 1820; and the committee instructed me, as their 
organ, to prepare a report and draft a substitute for Mr. Dodge's bill 
in accordance with these views. I will now read from the record, at, 



10 SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



the hazard of heing somewhat tedious, in order that the Senate and 
the country may judge ^ith what fidelity I performed this duty: 

"January 4tli, 1854, Mr. Douolas made the following report : 'Tlic Committee on Ter- 
ritories, to which was referred a bill for an act to establish the Territory of Nebraska, have 
given the yame that serious and deliberate consideration which its great importance de- 
mands, and beg leave to report it back to the Senate, with various amondmants, in the 
form of a substitute for the bill. 

•"The principal amendmonis which your committee deem it their duty to commeod to 
the favorable action of the Senate, in a special report, are those in which the principles 
established by the compromise measures of 1850, so far as they are applicable to territorial 
organizations, are proposed to be affirmed and carried into practical operation within the 
limits of the new Territory. 

" 'The wisdom of those measures is attested, not less by their salutary and beneficial 
effects in allaying sectional agitation and restoring peace and harmony to an irritated and 
distracted people, than by the cordial and almost universal approbation with which they 
have been received and sanctioned by the whole country. In the judgment of your com- 
mittee, those measures were intended to have a far more comprehensive and enduring effect than tlie mere 
adjustment of the difficulties arising out of the receiit aquisition of 3L^-Acan territory. They werb 

DESIGNED TO KSTABI/ISH CERTAIN GREAT PRINCIPLES, WUICU WOULD NOT ONLY FURNISH ADEQUATE 
REMEDIES FOR E.XISTING EVILS, liUT IN ALL TIME TO COME AVOID THE PERILS OF A SIMILAR AGITA- 
TION, BY WITHDRAWING THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY FROM THE HaLI^ OF CONGRESS AND THE POLITI- 
CAL ARENA, AND COMMITTING IT TO THE ARBITRAMENT OF THOSE WHO WERE IMMEDIADELT INTER- 
ESTED IN, AND ALONE RFSPONsiuLB FOR, ITS CONSEQUENCES. With the vlcw of Conforming their 
action to what they regard the settled policy of the govennnent, sanctioned by the ap- 
proving voice of the Ameiican people, your committee have deen:ied it their duty to incor- 
porate and perpetuate in their territorial bills the principles and spirit of those measures ' " 

After reviewing the provisions of the legislation of 1850, the com- 
mittee conclude as follows : 

" From these provisions it is apparent that the compromise nioa.sures of 1850 affirm and 
rest upon the following propositions : 

" First. That all questions pertaining to slavery in the Territories, and in the new 
States to be formed therefrom, arc to ho left to the decision of the people residing therein, 
by their appropriate representatives, to be chosen by them for thiit purpose. 

"Second. That ' all cases involving title to slaves,' and 'questions of personal freedom,' 
ar€ referred to the adjudication of the local tribunals, with the riglit of appeal to the 
tJupiienie Court of the United States. 

'■'' Third. That the provisions of the Constitution of the United States in respect to 
fugitiv€o from service is to be carried into faithful execution in all ' the organized Terri- 
tories ' tiiG same as in the States. 

" The f>ub>ititut<; for the bill which your committee have prepared, and which is com- 
mendod to the favoiablc action of the Senate, proposes to earn/ those propositions and principk-s 
into pradical operation in the precise language of the compromise measu Era op 1830." 

No sooner was this report and bill printed and laid upon the tables 
of Senators f.han an address was prepared and is.sued, over the sign-a- 
tures of those party leaders who liad always denounced " the Missouri 
compromise as a crime against freedom and a compact with infamy," 
in which the bill was "arraigned as a gross violation of a sacred 
pledge;" "as a criminal betrayal of precious rights;" and the report 
denounced as "a mere invention, designed to cover up from public 
reprehension metlitated bad faith." 

The Missouri compromise was "infamous," in tlieir estimation, so 
long as it remained upon the statute book and was carried out iu good 
faith, as a means of preserving the peace of the country and prevent- 
ing the slavery agitation in Congress. But it .suddenly became a 
*'sacre<l pledge," a "solemn compact for the preservation of precious 
rights," the moment they had succeeded in preventing its faithful 
execution and in causin^j it to be abandoned when it ceased to be an 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 11 



impregnable barrier against slavery agitation and sectional strife. 
The bill against which the hue and cry was raised, and the crusade 
preached, did not contain a word about the Missouri compromise, nor 
in any manner refer toat. It simply allowed the people of the Ter- 
ritory to legislate for thqmselves on all rightful subjects of legislation, 
and left them free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Constitution. So far as the Mis- 
souri act, or any otlier statute, might be supposed to conflict with 
this right of self-government in the Territories, it was, by inference^ « 
rendered null and void to that extent, and for no other purpose. 
Several weeks afterwards, when a doubt was suggested whether, under 
the bill as it stood, the people of the Territory would be authorized 
to exercise this right of self-government upon the slavery question 
during the existence of the territorial government, an amendment was 
adopted, on my motion, for the sole and avowed purpose of reihoving 
that doubt and securing that right in accordance with the compro- 
mise measures of 1850, as stated by me and reported in the debates 
at the time. The amendment will be found in the fourteenth section 
of the act, and is as follows : 

" That the Coastitution and all laws of the United States which are not locallj' inappli- 
cable, fchall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of Nebraska as else- - ' 
where within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the 
admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, u-hich, hehiy inconiistent 
, wnh the principle of iwn-intervention hi/ Cbnyress with daveri/ in the Slates and Territories, as recog- 
nized BY THE LEGISLATION OF 1850, commonly called the compromise measure, is hereby 
declared inoperative and void ; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to leg- 
islate slavery into any Territory o^ State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people 
thereof jJerfedly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only 
to the Constitution of the United States." 

In my opinion this amendment did not change the legal effect of 
the bill as reported by the committee. Its object was to render its 
meaning, certain, by removing all doubts in regard to the right of the 
people to exercise the privileges of self-government on the slavery 
question., as well as all others consistent with the Constitution, during 
their territorial oondition, as well as when they should become a 
State. Frpm that day to this there has been a fierce and desperate 
struggle betv/eeu the supporters and opponents of the territorial pol- 
icy inaugurated under the atispices of Mr. Clay in 1850, and affirmed 
in the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854 — the one to maintain, and the 
other to overthrow, the principle of non-intervention and popular sov- 
ereignty, as the settled policy of the government in reference to the 
organization, of Territories^ and the admission of new States. This 
sketch of the origin and progress of the slavery agitation as an ele- 
ment of political power and partisan warfare, covers the entire period 
from the organization of the Federal Grovernment under the Consti- 
tution, in 1789, to the,, present, and is naturally divided into three 

First. From 1789, when the Constitu^n went into operation, to 
18l9-'-20, when the Missouri controvers^^ose, the Territories were 
all organized upon the basis of non-intervention by Congres with the 
domestic affairs of the people, and especially upon the question of 



12 SPEECH OF HON S. A. DOUGLAS, 



African slavery. During the whole of this period domestic tranquil- 
lity and fraternal feeling prevailed. 

Second. From 1820, when the Missouri compromise was adopted, to 
1848 and 1850, when it was repudiated and finally abandoned, all- the 
Territories were organized with reference to the policy of an equitable 
partition between the two sections upon the line of 3G° 30'. During 
this period there was no serious difficulty upon the territorial question, 
80 long as the Missouri compromise was adhered to, and carried out 
in good faith. 

Third. From 1850, when the original doctrine of non-intervention, 
as it prevailed during the first thirty years, was re-established as the 
policy of the Government in the organization of Territories, and the 
admission of new States, to the present time, there has been a constant 
struggle, except for a short interval, to overthrow and repudiate the 
policy and principles of the compromise measures of 1850, for the pur- 
pose of returning to the old doctrine of congressional intervention for 
the prohibition of slavery in all the Territories, south as well as north 
of the Missouri line, regardless of the wishes and condition of the peo- 
ple inhabiting the country. 

In view of these facts, I feel authorized to reaffirm the proposition 
with which I commenced my remarks, that, whenever the Federal 
Government has attempted to control the slavery question in our 
newly-acquired Territories, alienation of feeling, discord, and sectional 
strife, have ensued; and whenever Congress has refrained from such 
interlerence, peace, harmony, and good will, have returned. The 
conclusion I draw from tliesc premises is, that the slavery question 
should be banished forever from the Halls of Congress and the arena 
•of Federal politics by an irrepealable constitutional provision. I have 
•deemed this exposition of the origin and progress of the slavery agi- 
.taiion essential to a full comprehension of the difficulties with wliich 
we are surrounded^ and the remedies for the evils which threaten the 
disLuption of the Ixepublic. The immediate causes which have pre- 
oijj'itated the southern country into revolution, although inseparably 
connected with, and fiowing from, the slavery agitation, whose history 
T have portrayed, are to be ibund in the result of the rc«ent presiden- 
tial election. I hold that the election of any man, tio matter who, by 
the American people, according to the Constitution, furnishes no cause, 
no justification, for the dissolution of the Union, But we cannot close 
our eyes to the fact that the southern people have received the result 
of that election as lurnishing conclusive evidence that the dominant 
party of the North, which is soon to take possession of the Federal 
Government ,under that election, are determined to invade and destroy 
their constituti )nal rights. Believing that their domestic institutions, 
their hearth-stones, and their family altars, are all to be assailed, at 
.least by indirect means, and that the Federal Government is to be used 
for the inauguration of a line of policy which shall have for its object 
the ultimate extinction of slavery in all the States, old as well as new. 
South as well as JN^orth, the southern people are prepared to rush 
wildly, madly, as I think, into revolution, disunion, war, and defy 
.the consequences, whatever they may be, rather thfin to wait for the. 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 13 



development of events, or submit tamely to what they think is a fatal 
blow impending over them and over all they hold dear on earth. It 
matters not, so far as we and the peace of the country and the fate of 
the Union are concerned, whether these apprehensions of the southern 
, people are real or imaginary, whether they are well founded or wholly 
without foundation, so long as they believe them%nd are determined 
to act upon them. The Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Wade,] whose speech 
was received with so much favor by his political friends the other day, 
referred to these serious apprehensions, and acknowledged his belief 
that the southern people were laboring under the conviction that they 
were well founded. He was kind enough to add that he did not blame 
the southern people much for what they were doing under this fatal 
misapprehension; but cast the whole blame upon the northern De- 
mocracy; and referred especially to his colleague and myself, for having 
misrepresented and falsified the purposes and policy of tlie Republican 
party, and for having made the southern people believe our misrepre- 
sentations ! He does not blame the southern people for acting on 
their honest convictions in resorting to revolution to avert an impend- 
ing but imaginary calamity. No; he does not blame them, because 
they believe in the existence of the danger; yet he will do no act to 
undeceive them; will take no step to relieve their painful apprehen- 
sions; and will furnish no guarantees, no security against the dangers 
which they believe to exist, and the existence of which he denies; but, 
on the contrary, he demands unconditional submission, threatens war, 
and talks about armies, navies, and military force, for the purpose ol 
preserving the Union and enforcing the laws ! I submit whether this 
mode of treating the question is not calculated to confirm the worst 
apprehensions of the southern people, and force them into the most 
extreme measures of resistance ? 

I regret that the Senator from Ohio, or any other Senator, should 
have deemed it consistent with his duty, under present circumstances, 
to introduce partisan politics, and attempt to manufacture partisan 
capital out of a question involving the peace and safety of the country. 
I repeat what I have said on another occasion, that, if I know myself, 
ray action will be influenced by no partisan considerations, until we 
shall have rescued the country from the perils which environ it. ^ But 
since the Senator has attempted to throw the whole responsibility of 
the present difficulties upon the northern Democracy, and has charged 
us with misrepresenting and falsifying the purposes and policy of the 
Republican party, and thereby deceiving the southern people, I feel 
called up to repel the charge, and show that it is without a shadow of 
foundation. No man living would rejoice more than myself in the 
conviction, if I could only be convinced of the fact, that I have mis- 
understood, and consequently misrepresented, the policy and designs 
of the Republican party. Produce the evidence and convince me of 
my error, and I will take more pleasure in making the correction and 
repairing the injustice than I ever have taken in denouncing what I 
believed to be an unjust and ruinous policy. 

With the view of ascertaining whether I have misapprehended or mis- 
represented the policy and purposes of the Republican party^ I will now 
inquire of the Senator, and yield the floor for an answer : 



14 SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



Whether it is not the policy of his party to confine slavery within 
its present limits by the action of the Federal Government? 

Whether they do not intend to abolish and prohibit slavery by act 
of Congress, notwithstanding the decision of the Supreme Court to the 
contrary, in all jhe Territories we now possess or may hereafter 
acquire? 

Whether he and his party are in favor of returning to their master 
the fugitive slaves that may escape? In short, I will give the Senator 
an opportunity now to say 

Mr. WADE. Mr. President 

Mr. DOUGLAS. One other question, and I will give way. 

Mr. WADE. Very well. 

Mr. DOUGLAS. I will give the Senator an opportunity of saying' 
now whether it is not the policy of his party to exert all the powers ol 
the Federal Government under the Constitution, according to their 
interpretation of the instrument, to restrain and cripple the institution 
of slavery, with a view to its ultimate extinction in all the States, old 
as well as new, south as well as north. 

Are nob these the views and purposes of the party, as proclaimed by 
their leaders, and understood by the people, in speeches, addresses, 
sermons, newspapers, and public meetings? Now, I will hear his 
answer. 

Mr. WADE. Mr. President, all these questions are most perti- 
nently answered in the speech the Senator is professing to answer. 
I have nothing to add to it. If he will read my speech, he will find 
my sentiments upon all those questions. 

Mr. DOUGLAS. Mr. President, I did not expect an unequivocal 
answer. I know too well that the Senator will not deny that each of 
these interrogatories do express his individual policy and the policy of 
the Piepublican party as he understands it. I should not have pro- 
pounded the interrogatories to him if he had not accused me and the 
northern Democracy of having misrepresented the policy of the Piepub- 
lican party, and with having deceived the southern people by such 
misrepresentation. The most obnoxious sentiments I ever attributed 
to the Ptepublican party, and that not in the South, but in northern 
Illinois and in the strongholds of Abolitionism, was that they intended 
to exercise the powers of the Federal Government with a view to the 
ultimate extinction of slavery in the southern States. I have expressed 
my belief, and would be glad to be corrected if I am in error, that it is 
the policy of that party to exclude slavery from all the Territories we 
now possess or may acquire, with a view of surrounding the slave 
States with a cordon of abolition States, and thus confine the institu- 
tion within such narrow limits that, when the number increases beyond 
the capacity of the soil to raise food for their subsistence, the institu- 
tion must end in starvation, colonization, or servile insurrection. I 
have often exposed the enormities of this policy, and appealed to the 
people of Illinois to know whether this mode of getting rid of the evils 
of slavery could be justified in,the name of civilization, humanity, and 
Christianity ? I have often used these arguments in the strongest 
abolition portions (^f the North; but never in the South. The truth 
is, I have always been very mild and gentle upon the Republicans 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 15 



when addressing a southern audience; for it seemed ungenerous to say 
• hehind their backs, and where they dare not go to reply to me, those 
things which I was in the habit of saying to their faces, and in the 
presence of their leaders, where they were in the majority. 

But inasmuch as I do not get a direct answer from the Senator who 
makes this charge against the northern Democracy, as to the purposes 
of that party to use the power of the Federal Government under their 
construction of the Constitution^ with a view to the ultimate extinc- 
tion of slavery in the States, I will turn to the record of their Presi- 
dent elect, and see what he says on that subject. The Kepublicans 
have gone to the trouble to collect and publish in pamphlet form, under 
the sanction of Mr. Lincoln, the debates which took place between him 
and myself in the senatorial canvass of 1858. It may not be improper 
here to remark that this publication is unfair towards me, for the rea- 
son that Mr. Lincoln personally revised and corrected his own speeches, 
without giving me an opportunity to correct the numerous errors in 
mine. Inasmuch as the publication is made, under the sanction of 
Mr. Lincoln himself, accompanied by a letter from him that he has re- 
vised the speeches by verbal corrections^ and thereby approved them, 
it becomes important to show what his views are, since he is in the 
daily habit of referring to those speeches for his present opinions. 

Mr. Lincoln was nominated for United States Senator by a Republi- 
can State convention at Springfield in June, 1858. Anticipating the 
nomination, he had carefully prepared a written speech, which he de- 
livered on the occasion, and which, by order of the convention, was 
published among the proceedings as containing the platform of princi- 
ples upon which the canvass was to be conducted. More importance 
is due to this speech than to those delivered under the excitement of 
debate in joint discussions influenced by the exigencies of the contest. 
The first few paragraphs which I will now read, may be taken as a fair 
statement of his opinions and feelings upon the slavery question. Mr. 
Lincoln said : 

'^ Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention, if v/e could first know where we are 
and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it. We are 
now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and con- 
fident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, 
that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, 
it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided 
against itself cannot stand ! I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house 
•to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all 
the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place 
it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinc- 
tion, or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall alike become lawful in all the States, 
old as well as new, Ncjrth as well as South. ' ' 

There you are told by the President elect that this Union cannot 
permanently endure divided into free and slave States ; that these 
States must all become free or all slave, all become one thing or all 
become the other ; that this agitation will never cease until the oppo- 
nents of slavery have restrained its expansion, and have placed it 
where the public mind will be satisfied that it will be in the course of 
ultimate extinction. Mark the language : 

*' Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it?" 



1() SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



We are now told that the ohject of the Republican party is to pre- 
vent the extension of slavery. What did Mr. Lincoln say ? That 
the opponents of slavery must first prevent the further spread of it. 
But that is not all. What else must they do? 

" And place it where the public mind can rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction." 

The ultimate extinction of slavery, of which Mr. Lincoln was then 
speaking, related to the States of this Union. He had reference to 
the soutliern States of this Confederacy ; for, in the next sentence, he 
says that the States must all become one thing or all the other — "old 
as well as new, north as well as south" — showing that he meant 
that the policy of the Republican party was to keep up this agitation 
in the Federal Government until slavery in the States was placed in 
the process of ultimate extinction. Now, sir, when the Republican 
committee have published an edition of Mr. Lincoln's speeches, con- 
taining sentiments like these, and circulated it as a campaign docu- 
ment, is it surprising that the people of the South should suppose that 
he was in earnest, and intended to carry out the policy which he had 
announced? 

I regret the necessity which has made it my duty to reproduce these 
dangerous and revolutionary opinions of the President elect. No con- 
sidtration could have induced me to have done so but the attempt of 
his friends to denounce the policy which Mr. Lincoln has boldly advo- 
cated as gross calumnies upon the Republican party, and as base in- 
ventions by the northern Democracy to excite rebellion in the southern 
country. I should like to find one Senator on that side of the Chana- 
ber, in the confidence of the President elect, who will have the hardi- 
hood to deny that Mr. Lincoln stands pledged by his public speeches, 
to which he now refers constantly as containing his present opinions, 
to carry out the policy indicated in the speech from which I have read. 
I take great pleasure in saying, however, that I do not believe the 
rights of the South will materially suff"er under the administration of 
Mr. Lincoln. I repeat what I have said on another occasion, that 
neither he nor his party will have the power to do any act prejudicial 
to Southern rights and interest, if the Union shall be preserved and 
the southern States shall retain a full delegation in both Houses of 
Congress. With a majority against them in this body and in the 
House of Representatives, they can do no act, except to enforce th« 
laws, without the consent of those to whom the South has confided 
her interests, and even his appointments for that purpose are subject 
to our advice and confirmation. Besides, I still indulge the hope that 
when Mr. Lincoln shall assume the high responsibilities which will 
goon devolve upon him, he will be fully impressed with the necessity 
of sinking the politician in the statesman, the partisan in the patriot, 
and regard the obligations which he owes to his country as paramount 
to those of his party. In view of these considerations, I had indulged 
the fond hope that the people of the southern States would have been 
content to remain in the Union and defend their rights under the Con- 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 17 



stitution, instead of rushing madly into revolution and disunion, as a 
refuge from apprehended dangers which may not exist. 

But this apprehension has become wide-spread and deep-seated in 
the southern people. It has taken possession of the southern mind, 
sunk deep in the southern heart, and filled them with the conviction 
that their fire-sides, their family altars, and their domestic institutions, 
are to be ruthlessly assailed through the machinery of the Federal 
Government. The Senator from Ohio says he does not blame you, 
southern Senators, nor the southern people, for believing those things; 
and yet, instead of doing those acts which will relieve your apprehen- 
sions, and render it impossible that your rights should be invaded by 
Federal power under any Administration, he threatens you with war, 
armies, military force, under pretext of enforcing the laws and pre- 
serving the Union. We are told that the authority of the Government 
must be vindicated; that the Union must be preserved; that rebellion 
must be put down; that insurrections must be suppressed, and the 
laws must be enforced. I agree to all this. I am in favor of doing 
all these things according to the Constitution and laws. No man will 
go further than I to maintain the just authority of the Government, 
to preserve the Union, to put down rebellion, to suppress insurrection, 
and to enforce the laws. I would use all the powers conferred by the 
Constitution for this purpose. But, in the performance of these im- 
portant and delicate duties, it must be borne in mind that those powers 
only must be used, and such measures employed, as are authorized by 
the Constitution and laws. Things should be called by the right 
names; and facts, whose existence can no longer be denied, should be 
acknowledged. 

Insurrections and rebellions, although unlawful and criminal, fre- 
quently become successful revolutions. The strongest governments 
and proudest monarchs on earth have often been reduced to the 
humiliating necessity of recognizing the existence of governments de 
facto, although not de jure, in their revolted States and provinces, 
when rebellion has ripened into successful revolution, and the na- 
tional authorities have been expelled from their limits. In such cases 
the right to regain possession and exact obedience to the laws remains; 
but the exercise of that right is war, and must be governed by the 
laws of war. Such was the relative condition of Great Britain and 
the American colonies for seven years after the declaration of inde- 
pendence. The rebellion had progressed and matured into revolution, 
with a government de facto, and an army and navy to defend it. Great 
Britain, regarding the complaints of the colonies unfounded, refused 
to yield to their demands, and proceeded to reduce them to obedience; 
not by the enforcement of the laws, but by military force, armies and 
navies, according to the rules and laws of war. Captives taken in 
hattle with arms in their hands, fighting against Great Britain, were 
not executed as traitors, but held as prisoners of war, and exchanged 
according to the usages of civilized nations. The laws of nations, 
the principles of humanity, of civilization, and Christianity, de- 
manded that the government de facto should be acknowledged and 
treated as such. While the right to prosecute war for the purpose of 



18 SPEECH OF HON. S A. DOUGLAS, 



reducing the revolted provinces to obedience still remained, yet it was 
a military remedy, and could only be exercised according to the 
established principles of war. 

It is said that, after one of the earliest engagements, the British 
general threatened to execute as traitors all the prisoners he had 
taken in battle, and that General Washington replied that he, too, 
had taken some prisoners, and would shoot two for one until the 
British general should respect the laws of war, and treat his prisoners 
accordingly. May divine Providence, in His infinite wisdom and 
mercy, save our country from the humiliation and calamities which 
now seem almost inevitable. South Carolina has already declared her 
independence of the United States; has expelled the federal author- 
ities from her limits, and established a government de facto, with a 
military force to sustain it. The revolution is complete, there being 
no man within her limits who denies the authority of her government 
or acknowledges allegiance to that of the United States. There is 
every reason to believe that seven other States will soon follow her 
example; and much ground to apprehend that the other slaveholding 
States will follow them. 

How are we going to prevent an alliance between the seceding 
States by which they may establish a Federal Government, at least 
de facto, for themselves? If they shall do so, and expel the authori- 
ties of the United States from their limits, as South Carolina has done, 
and others are about to do, so that there shall be no human being 
within their boundaries who acknowledges allegiance to the United 
States, how are we going to enforce the laws? Armies and navies 
can make war, but cannot enforce laws in this country. The laws 
can be enforced only by the civil authorities, assisted by the military 
as a posse comitatus, when resisted in executing judicial process. 
Who is to issue the judicial process in a State where there is no judge, 
no court, no judicial functionary? Who is to perform the duties of 
marslial in executing the process where no man will or dare accept 
office? Who are to serve on juries where every citizen is pariiceps 
criminis with the accused ? How are you going to comply with tho 
Constitution in respect to a jury trial, where there are no men quali- 
fied to serve on the jury? I agree that the laws should be enforced. 
I hold that our Government is clothed with the power and duty of using 
all the means necessary to the enforcement of the laws, according to 
the Constitution and laws. The President is sworn to the faithful 
performance of this duty. I do not propose to inquire, at this time, 
how far, and with what fidelity, the President has performed that 
duty. His conduct and duty in this regard, including acts of com- 
mission and omission, while the rebellion was in its incipient stages, 
and when confined to a feyv individuals, present a very different ques- 
tion from that which we are now discussing — after the revolution has 
become complete, and the Federal authorities have been expelled, and 
the Government de facto put into practical operation, and in the 
unrestrained and unresisted exercise of all the powers and functions 
of Government, local and national. 

But we are told that secession is wrong, and that South Carolina 



0>r THE STATE OF THE UNION. 19 



had no right to secede. I agree that it is wrong, unlawful, unconsti- 
tutional, criminal. In my opinion, South Carolina had no right to 
secede ; hut she has done it. She has declared her independence of us, 
effaced the last vestige of our civil authority, established a foreign 
Government, and is now engaged in the preliminary steps to open 
diplomatic- intercourse with the great Powers of the world. What 
next? If her act was illegal, unconstitutional, and wrong, have we 
no remedy? Unquestionably we have the right to use all the power 
and force necessary to regain possession of that portion of the United 
States, in order that we may again enforce our Constitution and laws 
upon the inhabitants. We can enforce our laws in those States, 
Territories, and places only which are within our possession. It often 
happens that the territorial rights of a country extend beyond the 
limits of their actual possessions. That is onr case at present in re- 
spect to South Carolina. Our right of jurisdiction over that State for 
Federal purposes, according to the Constitution, has not been de- 
stroyed or impaired by the ordinance of secession, or any act of the 
convention, or of the de facto government. The right remains ; but 
the possession is lost, for the time being. '' How shall we regain the 
possession?" is the pertinent inquiry. It may be done by arms, or 
by a peaceable adjustment of the matters in controversy. 

Are ive vrcpared for warl I do not mean that kind of preparation 
which consists of armies and navies, and supplies, and munitions of 
war ; but are we prepared in our hearts for war with our own brethren 
and kindred ? I confess I am not. While I affirm that the Constitu- 
tion is, and was intended to be, a bond of perpetual Union ; while I 
can do no act and utter no word that will acknowledge or countenance 
the right of secession ; while I affirm the right and duty of the Federal 
Government to use all legitimate means to enforce the laws, put down 
rebellion, and suppress insurrection, I will not meditate war, nor 
tolerate the idea, until every effort at peaceful adjustment shall have 
been exhausted, and the last ray of hope shall have deserted the 
patriot's heart. Then, and not till then, will I consider and deter- 
mine what course my duty to my country may require me to pursue 
in such an emergency. In my opinion, war is disunion, certain, 
inevitable, irrevocable. I am for peace to save the Union. 

I have said that I cannot recognize nor countenance the right of 
secession. Illinois, situated in the interior of the continent, can never 
acknowledge the right of the States bordering on the seas to withdraw 
from the Union at pleasure, and form alliances among themselves and 
with other countries, by which we shall be excluded from all access to 
the ocean, from all intercourse and commerce with foreign nations. 
We can never consent to be shut up within the circle of .a Chinese 
wall, erected and controlled by others without our permission ; or to 
any other system of isolation by which we shall be deprived of any 
communication with the rest of the civilized world. Those States 
which are situated in the interior of the continent can never assent to 
any such doctrine. Our rights, our interests, our safety, our existence 
as a free people, forbid it ! The northwestern States were ceded to the 
United States before the Constitution was made, on condition of per-' 



20 SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



petiial union with the other States. The Territories were organized, 
settlers invited, lands purchased, and homes made, on the pledge of 
your plighted faith of perpetual union. 

When there were but two hundred thousand inhabitants scattered 
over that vast region, the navigation of the Mississippi was deemed by 
Mr. Jefferson so important and essential to their interests and pros- 
perity, that he did not hesitate to declare that if Spain or France in- 
sisted upon retaining possession of the mouth of that river, it would 
become the duty of the United States to take it by arms, if they failed 
to acquire it by treaty. If the possession of that river, with jurisdic- 
tion over its mouth and channel, was indispensable to the people of 
the Northwest when we had two hundred thousand inhabitants, is it 
reasonable to suppose that we will voluntarily surrender it now when 
we have ten million people ? Louisiana was not purchased for the ex- 
clusive benefit of the few Spanish and French residents in the territory, 
nor for those who might become residents. These considerations did 
not enter into the negotiations and formed no inducement to the ac- 
quisition. Louisiana was purchased with the national treasure, for 
the common benefit of the whole Union in general, and for the safety, 
convenience, and prosperity of the Northwest in particular. We paid 
$15,000,000 for the territory. We have expended much more than 
that sum in the extinguishment of Indian titles, the removal of 
Indians, the survey of lands, the erection of custom-houses, light- 
houses, forts, and arsenals. We admitted the inhabitants into the 
Islnion on an equal footing with ourselves. Now we are called upon 
to acknowledge the moral and constitutional right of those people to 
dissolve the tlnion without the consent of the other States ; to seize 
the forts, arsenals, and other public property, and appropriate them to 
their own use ; to take possession of the Mississippi river, and exercise 
jurisdiction over the same, and to reannex herself to France, or remain 
an independent nation, or to form alliances with such other foreign 
Powers as she, in the plentitude of her sovereign will and pleasure, 
may see fit. If this thing is to be done — peaceably, if you can ; and 
forcibly, if you must — all I propose to say at this time is, that you 
cannot expect us of the Northwest to yield our assent to it, nor to 
acknowledge your right to do it, or the propriety and justice of the act. 
The respectful attention with which my friend from Florida [Mr. 
Yulee] is listening to me, reminds me that his State furnishes an apt 
illustration of this modern doctrine of secession. We paid five mil- 
lion for the Territory, We expended marvelous sums in subduing 
the Indians, extinguishing Indian titles, removal of Indians beyond 
her borders, surveying the lands, building light-houses, navy-yards, 
forts, and arsenals, with untold millions for the never-ending Florida 
claims. I assure my friend that I do not refer to these things in an 
offensive sense, for he knows how much respect I have for him, and 
has not forgotten my efforts in the House, many years ago, to secure 
the admission of his State into the Union, in order that he might 
represent her, as he has since done with so much ability and fidelity, 
in this body. But I will say that it never occurred to me at that time 
that the State whose admission into the Union I was advocating would 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 21 



be one of the first to join in a scheme to break up the Union. I sub- 
mit it to him whether it is not an extraordinary spectacle to see that 
State, which has cost us so much blood and treasure, turn her back . 
on the Union which has fostered and protected her when she was too 
feeble to protect herself, and seize the light-houses, navy-yards, forts, 
and arsenals, which, although within her boundaries, were erected 
with national funds, for the benefit and defence of the whole Union. 
I do not know that I can find a more striking illustration of this 
doctrine of secession than was suggested to my mind when reading 
the President's last annual message." My attention was first arrested 
by the remarkable passage, that, the Federal Government had no 
power to Goerce a 8tate back into the Union if she did secede ; and my 
admiration was unbounded when I found, a few lines afterwards, a 
recommendation to appropriate money to purchase the Island of Cuba. 
It occurred to me instantly, what a bTilliaut achievement it would be 
to pay Spain $300,000,000 for Cuba, and immediately admit the island 
into the Union as a State, and let her secede and reannex herself to 
Spain the next day, when the Spanish Queen would be ready to sell 
the island again for half price, or double price, according to the gul- 
ibility of the purchaser? [Laughter.] 

During my service in Congress it was one of my pleasant duties to 
take an active part in the annexation of Texas ; and at a subsequent 
session to write and introduce the bill which made Texas one of the 
States of the Union. Out of that annexation grew the war with 
Mexico, in which we expended $100,000,000 ; and were left to mourn 
the loss of about ten thousand as gallant men as ever died upon a 
battle-field for the honor and glory of their country ! We have since 
spent millions of money to protect Texas against her own Indians, tu 
establish forts and fortifications to protect her frontier settlements, and 
to defend her against the assaults of all enemies until she became 
strong enough to protect herself. We are now called upon to acknow- 
ledge that Texas has a moral, just, and constitutional right to rescind 
the act of admission into the Union ; repudiate her ratification of the 
resolutions of annexation ; seize the forts and public buildings which 
were constructed with our money ; appropriate the same to her own 
use, and leave us to pay $100,000,000 and mourn the death of the 
brave men who sacrificed their lives in defending the integrity of her 
soil. In the name of Hardin, and Bissell, and Harris, and of the 
seven thousand gallant spirits from Illinois, who fought bravely upon 
every battle-field of Mexico, I protest against the right of Texas to 
separate herself from this Union without our consent. 

Mr. HEMPHILL. Mr. President, if the SenaLor from Illinois will 
allow me, I will inquire whether there were no other causes assigned 
by the United States for the war with Mexico than simply the defence 
of Texas ? 

Mr. DOUGLAS. I will answer the question. We undoubtedly 
did assign other acts as being causes for war, which had existed for 
years, if we had chosen to treat them so ; but we did not go to war 
for any other cause than the annexation of Texas, as is shown in the 
act of Congress recognizing the existence of war with Mexico, in 



22 SPEECH OF HON. 8. A. D'OUGLAS, 



which it is declared that "war exists tj the act of the Eepublic of 
Mexico." The sole cause of grievance which Mexico had against us, 
and for which she commenced the war, was our annexation of Texas. 
Hence, none can deny' that the Mexican war was solely and exclusively 
the result of the annexation of Texas. 

Mr. HEMPHILL. I will inquire further, whether the United 
States paid anything to Texas for the annexation of her three hun- 
dred and seventy thousand square miles of territory, and whetlier the 
United States has not got 1500,000,000 by the acquisition of California 
through that war with Mexico. • 

Mr. DOUGrLAS. Sir^ we did iBt»t pay anything for bringing Texas 
into the Union ; for we did not get any of her lands, exoept that we 
purchased from her some poor lands afterwards, which slie did not 
own, and paid her $10,000,0(10 for them. ■ [Laughter.] But we did 
spend blood and treasure in the acquisition and subsequent defence of 
Texas. ' • ■'.■ ? - . 

Now, sir, I will answer his question in respect to California. 'The 
tifeaty of peace brought California and* New Mexico into the Union. 
Our people moved there, took possession of the lands, settled up the 
country, and erected a State ot which the United States have a right 
to be' prmid We have'expended millions upon millions for fortifica- 
tions in California, and for navy-yards, and mints, and public build- 
ings, and land surveys, and feeding the Indians, and protecting her 
people. I believe the public land sales do not amount to more than 
dne-tenth of the cost of the surveys, according to the returns that 
have been made. It is true that the people of California have dug a 
large amount of gold (principally upon the lands belonging to the 
United States) and sold it to us ; but I am not aware that we are 
under any more obligations to them for selling it to us than they are 
to us for buying it of them. The people of Texas, during the same 
time, have probably made cotton and agricultural productions to a 
much larger value, and sold some oi it to New'England and some to 
Old Englahd. I suppose the benefits of the bargain were reciprocal, 
and the one was under just as much obligation as the other for the 
mutual benefits of the sale and purchase. 

Tlie question remains, whether, after paying $15,000,000 for Cali- 
fornia — as the senator from Texas has called ray attention to that 
State — and perhaps as inuch more in protecting and defending her, 
she has any moral, constitutional right to annul the compact between 
her and the Union, and form alliances with foreign powers, and leave 
us to pay the cost and expenses ? I cannot recognize any such doc- 
trine. In my opinion, the Constitution was intended to be a bond of 
perpetual Union. It begins with the declaration in the preamble, 
that it is made in order, " to form a more perfect Union," and every 
section and paragraph in the instrument implies per[)eLuity. It was 
intended to last for ever, and was so understood when ratified by the 
pfecfple of'the several States. New York and Virginia have been re- 
'fette'd to as. having ratified with the reserved right to withdraw or 
secede at plqasurd. This is a mistake. The correspondence between 
General Hamilton and Mr. Madison, at the time, is conclusive on this 



ON THE STATE OP THE UNION. 23 



point. After Virginia had ratified the Constitution, General Hamil- 
- ton, who was a member o^the New York convention, wrote to Mr. 
Madison that New^, York would probahly ratifythe Constitution for a 
term of years, and reserve the right to withdraw after that time, if 
certain amendments were not sooner adopted ; to which Mr. Madison 
replied that such a ratification would not make New York a member of 
the Union ; that the ratification must be unconditional, in toio and 
forever, or not at all; that the same question was considered at Rich- 
mond, and abandoned when Virginia ratified the Constitution. Hence, 
the declaration of Virginia and New York, that they had not sur- 
rendered the right to resume the delegated powers, must be under- 
stood as referring to the right of revolution, which nobody acknow- 
ledges more freely than I do, and not to the right of secession. 

The Constitution being made as a bond of perpetual- Union, its 
framers proceeded to provide against the necessities of revolution, by 
prescribing the mode in which-it might be amended, so that if, in the 
course of time, the condition of the country should so change as to 
require a different fundamental law, amendments might be made 
peaceably, in the manner prescribed in the instrument; and thus avoid 
the necessity of ever resorting to revolution. Having provided for a 
perpetual Union, and for amendments to the Constitution, they next 
inserted a clause for admitting new States, but no provision for the 
loitlidratval of any of the oiher States. I will not argue the question 
of the right of secession any further than to enter my protest against 
the whole doctrine. X deny that there is any foundation for it in the 
Constitution^ in the nature of the compact, in the principles of the 
Government, or in justice, or in good faith. 

Nor do I sympathize at all in the apprehensions and misgivings I 
hear expressed about coercion. We are told that inasmuch as our 
Government is founded upon the will of the people, or the consent of 
the governed, therefore coercion is incompatible with republicanism. 
Sir, the word^overnment- means coercion. There can be no Govern- 
ment without coercion. Coercion is the vital principle upon which all 
Governments rest. Withdraw the right of coercion, and you dissolve 
your Government. If every man would perform his duty and respect 
the rights of his neighbors voluntarily, there would be no necessity 
for any Government on earth. The necessity of government is found 
to consist in the fact that some men will not do right unless coerced 
to do so: The object of all government is to coerce and compel every 
man to do his duty, who would not otherwise perform it. Hence I do 
not subscribe at all to this doctrine that coercion is not to be used in 
a free Government. It must be used in all Governments, no matter 
what their form or what their principles. 

But coercion must always be used in the mode prescribed in the 
Constitution and laws. I hold that the Federal Government is, and 
ought to be, clothed with the power" and duty to use all the means 
necessary to coerce obedience to all laws made in pursuance of the 
Constitution. But the proposition to subvert the de facto govern- 
ment of South Carolina, and to reduce the people of that State into 
subjection to our Federal authority, ho longer involves the question 



24 SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



of enforcing the laws in a country within our possession ; but does 
involve the question whether we will ma^e war on a State which has 
withdrawn her allegiance and expelled our authorities, with a view 
of suhjectini!; her to our possession 'for the purpose of enforcing our 
laws within her limits. 

We are bound, by the usages of nations, by the laws of civilization, 
by the uniform practice of our own Government, to acknowledge the 
existence of a Government de facto, so long as it maintains its undi- 
vided authority. When Louis Philippe fled from the throne of France, 
and Lamartine suddenly one morning found himself the htad of a 
provisional Government, I believe it was but three days until the 
American minister recognized the Government de facto. Texas was 
a Government de facto, not recognized by Mexico, when we annexed 
her ;• and Mexico was a Government de facto, not recognized by Spain, 
when Texas revolted. The laws of nations recognize Governments 
de facto where they exercise and maintain undivided sv/ay, leaving 
the question of their authority de jure to be determined by the people 
interested in the Government. Now, as a man who loves the Union, and 
desires to see it maintained forever, and to see the laws enforced, and 
rebellion put down, and insurrection suppressed, and order main- 
tained, I desire to know of my Union-loving friends on the Kepublican 
side of the Chamber how they intend to enforce the laws in the 
seceding States, except by making war, conquering them first, and 
administering the laws in them atterwards. 

In my opinion, we have reached a point where disunion is inevi- 
table, unless some compromise, founded upon mutual concession, can 
be made. 1 prefer compromise to war. 1 prefer concession to a dis- 
solution of the Union. When I avow myself in favor of compromise, 
I do not mean that one side should give up all that it has claimed, 
nor that tiie other side should give up everything for which it has 
contended. Nor do I ask any man to come to my standard ; but I 
simply say that I will meet every one halfway who is willing to pre- 
serve the peace of the country, and save the Union from disruption 
upon principles of compromise and concession. 

In my judgment, no system of compromise can be effectual and 
permanent which does not banish the slavery question from the Halls 
of Congress and the arena of Federal politics, by irrepealable consti- 
tutional provision. We have tried compromises by law, compromises 
by act of Congress ; and now we are engaged in the small business of 
crimination and recrimination, as to who is responsible for not having 
lived up to them in good faith, and for having broken faith. I want 
whatever compromise is agreed to placed beyond the reach of party 
politics and partisan policy, by being made irrevocalde in the Consti- 
tution itself, so that every man that holds office will be bound by hia 
oath to support it. 

There are several modes in which this irritating question may be 
withdrawn from Congress, peace restored, the rights of the States 
maintained, and the Union rendered secure. One of them — one to 
which I can cordially absent — has been presented by the venerable 
Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. CRiTtENDEN.] The journal of the 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 25 



ocunmittee of thirteen shgwe that I voted for it in committee. 
I am prepared to vote for it again. I shall not occupy time now in 
discussing the question whether my vote to make a partition between 
the two sections, instead of referring the question to the people, will 
be consistent with my previous record or not. The country has no 
very great interest in my consistency.' The preservation of this 
Union, the integrity of this Eepublic, is "of more importance than 
party platforms or individual records. Hence I have no hesitation 
in saying to Senators on all sides of this Chamber, that I am prei)ared 
to act on this question with reference to the present exigencies of the 
(^se, as if I had never given a vote, or uttered a word, or had an 
opinion upon the subject. 

Why cannot you Republicans accede to the re establishment and 
estension of the Missouri compromise line? You. have sung peans 
enough in its praise, and uttered imprecations and curses enough on 
my head for its repeal, one would tiiink, to justify you now in claim- 
ing a triumph by its re-establishment. If you are willing to give up 
your party feelings — to sink the .partisan in the patriot — and lielp me 
to re-establish and extend that line, as a perpetual bond of peace 
between the North and the South, I will promise you never to remind 
you in the future of your denunciations of the Missouri compromise 
so long a< I was supporting it, and of your praises of the same 
measure when we removed it from the statute-book, after you had 
caused it to be abandoned, by rendering it impossible lor us to carry 
it out. I seek no partisan advantage ; I desire no personal triumph, 
I am willing to let by-gones be by-gones with every man who, in this 
exigency, will show by his vote that he loves his country more than 
his party. 

I presented to the committee of thirteen, and also introduced into 
the Senate, another plan by which the slavery question may be taken 
out of Congress, and the peace of the country maintained. It is, that 
Congress shall make no law on the subject ot slavery in the Terri- 
tories, and that the existing status of each Territory on that subject, 
as it now stands by law, shall remain unchanged until it has tifty 
thousand inhabitants, when it shall have the right of self-government 
as to its domestic policy ; but with only a Delegate in each House of 
Congress until it has the population required by the Federal ratio for 
a Representative in Congress, when it shall be admitted into the 
Union on an equal footing with the original States. I put the num- 
ber of inhabitants at fifty thousand before the people of the Territory 
shall change the status in respect to slavery as a fair compromise 
between the conflicting opinions upon this subject. The two extremes, 
North and South, unite in condemning the doctrine of popular 
eovereignty in the Territories upon the ground that the first lew 
Sittlers ought not to be permitted to decide so important a question 
for those who are to come after them. I have never considered that 
objection well taken, for the reason that no Territory should be organ- 
ized with the right to elect a Legislature, and make its own laws 
upon all rightful subjects of legislation, until it contained a sntficient 
population to constitute a political community ; and whenever Con- 



26 SPEECH OF HON. S. A. DOUGLAS, 



gress should decide that there was a suflS^ient population, capable of 
self-government, by organizing the Territory, to govern themselves 
upon all other subjects, I could never perceive any good reason why 
the same political community should not be permitted to decide the 
slavery question for themselves. 

But_, since wc are now trying to compromise our difficulties upon 
the basis of mutual concessions, I propose to meet both extremes half- 
way, by fixing the number at fifty thousand. This number certainly 
ought to be satisfactory to those States which have been admitted into 
the Union with less than fifty thousand inhabitants. Oregon, Flor- 
ida, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, 
were each admitted into the Union, I believe, with less than that 
number of inhabitants. Surely the Senators and Representatives 
from those States do not doubt that fifty thousand people were enough 
to constitute a political community capable of deciding the slavery 
question for themselves. I now invite attention to the next propo- 
sition. 

In order to allay all apprehension, North or South, that territory 
would be acquired in the future for sectional or partisan purposes, by 
adding a large number of free States on the North, or slave States on 
the South, with the view of giving the one section or the other a 
dangerous political ascendency, I have inserted the provision that 
" No more territory shall be acquired by the United States, except by 
treaty or the concurrent vote of two-thirds in each House of Congress." 
If this provision should be incorporated into the Constitution, it would 
be impossible for either section to annex any territory without the 
concurrence of a large portion of the other section ; and hence there 
need be no apprehension that any territorv would hereafter be acquired 
for any other thaa such national -considerations as would commend 
the subject to the approbation of both sections. 

I have also inserted a provision confining fhe right ofBuflPrage and 
of holding office to white men, excluding the African race. I have 
also inserted a provision for the colonization of free negroes from such 
States as may desire to have them removed, to districts of country to 
be acquired in Africa and South America. In addition to these, I 
have adopted the various provisions contained in the proposition of 
the Senator from Kentucky, in reference to fugitive slaves, the aboli- 
tion of slavery in the Ibrts, arsenals, and dock-yards in the slave 
States and in the District of Columbia, and the other provisions for 
the safety of the South. I believe this to be a fair basis of amicable 
adjustment. If you of the Republican side are not willing to accept 
this, nor the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Crit- 
tenden,] pray tell us what you are willing to do? I address the 
inquiry to the Republicans alone, for the reason that in tlio committee 
of thirteen, a few days ago, every member from tlie South, including 
those from the cotton States, [Messrs. Toombs and Davis,] expressed 
their readiness to accept the proposition of my venerable friend from 
Kentucky [Mr. Crittenden] as a final settlement of the controversy, 
if teiHered and sustained by the Republican members. Hence, the 



ON THE STATE OF THE ,UNION. " 27 



sole responsibility of our disagreement, and the only difficulty in the 
way of an amicable adjustment, is with the Republican party 

At first I thought your reason for declining to adjust this question 
amicably was, that the .Constitution, as it stands, was good enough, 
and that you' would make no amendment to it. That position has 
already been waived. The great leader of the Republican party, 
[Mr. Seward,] by the unanimous concurrence of his friends, brought 
into the committee of thirteen a proposition to amend the Constitution. 
Inasmuch, therefore, as you are willing to amend the instrument, and 
to entertain propositions of adjustment, why not go further, and 
relieve the apprehensions of the southern people on all points where 
you do not intend to operate aggressively ? You offer to amend the 
Constitution, by declaring that no future amendments shall be made 
which shall empower Congress to interfere with slavery in the States. 

Now, if you do not intend to do any other act prejudicial to their 
constitutional rights and safety, why not relieve their apprehensions, 
by inserting in your own proposed amendment to the Constitution, 
such further provisions as will, in like manner render it impossible for 
you to do that which they apprehend you intend to do, and which you 
have no purpose of doing, if it be true that you have no such purpose? 
For the purpose of removing the apprehensions of the southern people, 
and for no other purpose^ you propose to amend the Constitution so 
as to render it impossible, in all future time, for Congress to interfere 
with slavery in the States; where it may exist under the laws thereof. 
Why not insert a similar amendment in respect to slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and in the navy-yards, forts, arsenals, and other 
places within the limits of the slaveholding States, over which Con- 
gress has exclusive jurisdiction ? Why not insert a similar provision 
in respect to the slave trade between the slaveholding States? The 
southern people have more serious apprehensions on these points than 
they have of your direct interference with slavery in the States. 

If their apprehensions on these several points are groundless, is it 
not a duty you owe to God and your country to relieve their anxiety 
and remove all causes of discontent ? Is there not quite as much rea- 
son for relieving their apprehensions upon these points, in regard to 
which they are much more sensitive, as in respect to your direct inter- 
ference in the States, where they know, and you acknowledge, that you 
have no power to interfere as the Constitution now stands? The fact 
that you propose to give the assurance on the one point and peremp- 
torily refuse to give it on the others, seems to authorize the presump- 
tion that you do intend to use the powers of the Federal Government 
for the purpose of direct interference with slavery and the slave trade 
everywhere else, with the view to its indirect effects upon slavery in 
the States ; 6r, in the language of Mr. Lincoln, with the view of its 
"ultimate extinction in all the States, old as well as new, north as 
well as south." 

If you had exhausted your ingenuity in devising a plan for the ex- 
press purpose of increasing the apprehensions and inflaming the pas- 
sions of the southern people, with the view of driving them into revo- 
lution and disunion, none could have been contrived better calculated 



28 SPEECH OF HON. S, A. DOUGLAS, 



to accomplish the object than the offering of that one amendment to 
the Constitution, and rejecting all others which are infinitely more 
im})ortant to the safety and domestic tranquillity of the slaveholding 
States. 

In rny opinion, we have now reached a point where this agitation 
must close, and all the matters in controversy be finally determined 
by constitutional amendments, or civil war and the disruption of the 
Union are inevitable. My friend from Oregon, [Mr. Baker,] who 
has addressed the Senate for the last two days, will fail in his avowed 
purpose to " evade" the question. He claims to be liberal and con- 
servative ; and I must confess that he seems the most liberal of any 
gentleman on that side of the Chamber, always excepting the noble 
and ])atriotic speech of the iSenator from Connecticut, [Mr. Dixon;] 
and the utmost extent to which the Senator from Oregon would con- 
aent to go, was to devise a scheme by which the real question at 
issue could be evaded. 

I regret the determination, to which 1 apprehend the RepublicaTi 
Senators have come, to make no adjustment, entertain no proposition, 
and listen to no compromise of the matters in controversy. 

I fear, from all the indications, that they are disposed to treat the 
matter as a party question, to be determined in caucus with reference 
to its effects upon the prospects of their party, rather than upon the 
peace of the country and the safety of the Union. I invoke their 
deliberate judgment whether it is not a dangerous experiment for 
any political party to demonstrate to the American people that the 
unity of their party is dearer to them than^he Union of these States. 
The argument is that the Chicago platform having been ratified by 
the people in a majority of the States must be maintained at all 
hazards, no matter what the consequences to the country. I insist 
that they are mistaken in the fact when they assert that this question 
was decided by the American peo})le in the late election. The Ameri- 
can ])eople have not decided that they preferred the disruption of this 
Government, and civil war with all its horrors and miseries, to sur- 
rendering one iota of the Chicago platform. If you believe that tlte 
people are with you on this issue, l6t the question be submitted to the 
people on the proposition offered by the Senator from Kentucky, or 
mine, or any other fair compromise, and I will venture the prediction 
that your own people will ratify the proposed amendments to the 
Constitution, in order to take this slavery agitation out of Congress, 
and restore peace to the country, and insure the perpetuity of the 
Union. 

Why not give the people a chance? It is an important crisis. 
There is now a different issue presented from that in the ])resideiitial 
election. I have no doubt that the ])ef>ple of MaSsachfisetts, by an 
overwhelming majority, are in favor of a prohibition of slavery in the 
Territories by an act of Congress. An overwhelming majority of the 
same people were in favor of the instant prohibition of the African 
slave trade, on moral and religious grounds, when the Constitution 
was made. When they found that the Constitution could not be 
adopted and the Union preserved without surrendering their objec- 



ON THE STATE OF THE UNION. 29 



tions on the slavery question, they, in the s])irit of patriotism and of 
Christian feeling, preferred the lesser evil to the greater, and ratified 
the Constitution without their favorite provision in regard to slavery. 
Give them a chance to decide now between the ratification of these pro- 
posed amendments to the Constitution and the consequences which 
your policy will inevitably produce. 

Why not allow the people to pass on these questions? All we have 
to do is to submit them to the States. If the people reject them, theirs 
will be the responsibility, and no harm will have been done by the 
reference. If they accept them, the country will be safe and at peace. 
The political party which shall refuse to allow the people to determine 
for themselves at the ballot-box the issue between revolution and war 
om the one side, and obstinate adherence to a party platform on the 
other, will assume a fearful responsibility. A war upon a political 
issue, waged by the people of eighteen States against the people and 
domestic institutions of fifteen sister States, is a itarful and revolting 
thought. The South will be a unit, and desperate, under the belief 
that your object in waging M^ar is their destruction, and not the pre- 
servation of the Union ; that you meditate servile insurrection and the 
abolition of slavery in the southern States by fire and sword, in the 
name and under pretext of enforcing the laws and vindicating the 
authority of the Government. You know that such is the prevailing, 
and, I may say, unanimous opinion at the South ; and that ten million 
people are preparing for the terrible conflict under that conviction. 

When there is such an irrepressible discontent pervading ten mil- 
lion people, penetrating the bosom of every man, woman, and child, 
and, in their estimation, involving everything that is valuable and 
dear on earth, is it not time to pause and reflect whether there is not 
some cause, real or imaginary, for apprehension? If there be a just 
cause for it, in God's name, in the name of humanity and civilization, 
let it be removed. Will we not be guilty, in the sight of Heaven and 
of posterity, if we do not remove all just cause before proceeding to 
estremities? If, on the contrary, there be no real foundation for these 
apprehensions ; if it be all a mistake, and yet they, believing it to be 
a solemn reality, are determined to act on that belief,jiis it not equally 
our duty to remove the misapprehension? Hence the obligation to 
remove the causes of discontent, whether real or imaginary, is alike 
imperative upon us, if we wish to preserve the peace of the country 
and the Union of the States. 

It matters not, so far as the peace of the country and the preserva- 
tion of the Union are concerned, whether the apprehensions of the 
southern people are well founded or not, so long as they believe them, 
and are determined to act upon that belief. If war comes, it must 
have an end at some time ; and that termination, I apprehend, will 
be a final separation. Whether the war last one year, seven years, 
or thirty years, the result must be the same — a cessation of hostilities 
when the parties become exhausted, and a treaty of peace recognizing 
the separate independence of each section. The history of the world 
does not furnish an instance, where war has raged for a series of years 
between two classes of States, divided by a geographical line under 
the Bame national Government, which has ended in reconciliation and 



30 SPEECH OF HON, S. A. DOUGLAS. 



reunion. Extermination, subjugation, or separation — one of the three 
— must be the result of war between the northern and southern States. 
Surely, you do not expect to exterminate or subjugate ten million peo- 
ple, the entire population of one section, as a means of preserving 
amicable relations between the two sections I 

I repeat, then, my solemn conviction, that war means disunion — 
final, irrevocable' eternal separation. 1 see no alternative, therefore, 
but a i'air compromise, founded on the basis of .mutual concessions, 
alike honorable, just, and beneficial to all parties, or civil war and 
disunion. Is there anything humiliating in a fair compromise of con- 
flicting interests, opinions, and theories, for the sake of peace, union, 
and safety ? Read the debates of the Federal convention, which formed 
our glorious* Constitution, and you will find noble examples, worthy 
of imitation; instances where sages and patriots were willing to sur- 
render cherished theories and principles of government, believed to be 
essential to the best form of society, for the sake of peace and union. 

I never understood that wise and good men ever regarded mutual 
concessions by such men as Washington, Madison, Franklin, and 
Hamilton, as evidences of weakness, cowardice, or want of patriotism. 
On the contrary, this spirit of conciliation and compromise has ever been 
considered, and will in all time be regarded as the highest evidence 
which their great deeds and immortal services ever furnished of their 
patriotism, wisdom, foresight, and devotion to their country and their 
race. Can we not afford to imitate their example in this momentous 
crisis ? Are we to be told that we must not do our duty to our country 
lest we injure the party; that no compromise ,can be effected without 
violating the party platform upon which we were elected ? Better 
that all party platforms be scattered to the winds; better that all 
political organizations be broken up; better that every public man and 
politician in America be consigned to political martyrdom, than that 
the Union be destroyed and the country plunged into civil war. 

It stems that party platforms, pride of opinion, personal consistency, 
fear of political martyrdom, are the only obstacles to a satisfactory 
adjustment. Have we nothing else to live for but political position? 
Have we no other inducement, no other incentive to our efforts, our 
toils, and our sacrifices? Most of us have children, the objects of 
ouf tenderest affections and deepest solicitude, whom we hope to leave 
behind us to enjoy the rewards of our labors in a happy, prosperous, 
and united country, under the best Government the wisdom of man 
ever devised or the sun of Heaven ever shone upon. Can we make 
no concessions, no sacrifices, for the sake of our children, that they 
may have a country to live in, and a Grovernment to protect them, 
when party platforms and political honors shall avail us nothing in 
the day of final reckoning ? 

In conclusion, I have only to renew the assurance that I am pre- 
pared to co-operate cordially with the friends of a fair, just, and lion- 
orable compromise, in securing such amendments to the Constitution 
as will expel the slavery agitation from Congress and the arena of 
Federal politics forever, and restore peace to the country, and preserve 
our liberties and Union as the most precious legacy we can transmit 
to our posterity. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
011 895 774 rIi 



